Move your fingers and get new knowledge
This article was first published on the public account Xiaoshouyoushishi, originally written by Xiaoshouyoushi
| Edited by Zeng Jianchuan | Xiaoduo
Have you noticed that those "student masters" who shine among their peers are not only admirable for their good academic performance, but also their ability to engage in a wide range of interests and hobbies within the same limited time. Where do get the time and energy to take care of so many things and do them so well?
Today’s article reveals this truth that has troubled people for many years: Having a wide range of interests is not only about cultivating specialties, but more importantly, cultivating learning abilities that can be flexibly “transferred”.
Far away in a foreign country,
My ten-year-old son’s learning ability is better than mine
My son’s study life in a French school has entered the second “semester”, and there is a second gathering among classmates – a laser gun shooting activity between boys. And I also accumulated enough questions to ask parents at the party.
For a foreign parent like me, many of the details of "home-school co-education" in French schools are quite difficult "learning" tasks. School daily routines, matters that need to be responded to and handled by teachers, arranging extracurricular interests and sports for children, joining activities of school-linked organizations, applying according to rules, paying fees according to personal needs, promptly following up on time-limited activities sent by various organizations, and finding clubs suitable for children to participate in, and following the rules and procedures of each club to try to participate, etc., all need to be gradually familiarized and "learned".
These things are not easy for a "French illiterate" like me. Even two weeks after the principal sent me an email to urge me to pay a certain fee, I was still at a loss and could not find an effective way to pay the fee for which I didn't know how to calculate the amount.
At a children’s party, I finally found the opportunity to ask other parents for help. An Austrian former pilot enthusiastically helped me answer almost all my questions.
Then he asked me, how is your child adapting in school? I pictured in my mind the smiling face of my son happily going to and from school every day. said that he seemed to adapt well on the first day.
The Austrian father said, "I know it must not be easy for him. Just like you have difficulty dealing with these trivial things, there should be a lot of strange things that he needs to deal with and learn at school. He is really great! "
I feel very ashamed that I have not noticed at all what kind of sacrifice my son may have made behind his "easy" adaptation. And before he entered school, I actually told him in a serious manner that entering such a completely unfamiliar learning environment requires more of his "learning ability."
His son has obviously shown part of his "learning ability", and the praise he heard came from other parents whom he had just met for the first time.
Speaking of which, my thinking about what kind of "learning ability" my son needs to go to a new environment is due to what Bacon said in "On Traveling Far Away" - before traveling abroad, you need to think clearly about "what things to see, who to make friends with, what kind of sports to learn, or what kind of knowledge to gain" abroad. Be aware of it, because "Travelling to young people is part of education, and to older people it is part of experience."
Bacon's understanding of "education" and "learning" obviously transcends the scope of books and knowledge, similar to our ancient Chinese saying "Reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles" , this is a saying that all Chinese people are familiar with.
What’s strange is that it wasn’t until I was about to “travel thousands of miles” that I began to truly consider it together with the meaning of “reading thousands of books”, and began to rethink the children’s “learning ability” .
This is another thing that makes me feel ashamed. However, many students and parents today, especially those who work hard in the whirlpool of "studying" and "being drawn", is it not the same - only "knows it" of the principle of "reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles"; the understanding of "learning ability" is closely linked to academic knowledge and performance!
has a wide range of interests,
is a manifestation of strong "learning ability"
A few years ago, the six-year-old daughter of a domestic friend recited a prose poem with great emotion at a family gathering. She had just won the gold medal in the National Broadcasting and Hosting Competition with this performance. Later we learned that she had obtained a deep-water swimming certificate at the same time, and had already started practicing figure skating, skiing and other projects.
A friend and his wife had a dispute about this. The mother believed that the child should be given enough time to do some in-class subject exercises to prepare for the upcoming elementary school study, otherwise she might lose at the starting line; while the father waved his hand and thought it was not necessary at all. He said something that impressed me deeply.
He said that the reason why his children are exposed to so many projects is that he wants to discover her interests and strengths, and more importantly, wants to cultivate her "learning ability." Because the learning process of those projects is difficult enough, it takes a lot of effort to get any results. If she can persevere and even achieve certain results, then use this ability to cope with the following in-class learning, what else about can she not handle?
Today, this little girl has entered fourth grade at a school in Beijing that ranks highly in the "test" circle. Her grades are far ahead of the rest of the grade, and she is still persisting in her interest projects.
Whether it is the ancient Chinese saying "Reading thousands of books, traveling thousands of miles", or Bacon's "Traveling in youth is part of education", or friends firmly believe that "learning ability" should be obtained from the acquisition of richer content outside of books, their corresponding logic has actually been explained by theory.
Child psychologist Jean Piaget proposed four mechanisms of children's cognition in his famous generative epistemology - schema, assimilation, adaptation and balance.
Among them, assimilation and adaptation explain the two ways people adapt to the environment.
assimilation emphasizes that incorporates new knowledge into existing cognitive (which is what Piaget calls " schema "), enriching the existing "knowledge base" or "intellectual background". We can understand it as accumulation in the same direction;
adaptation emphasizes that in the new environment of and , through the new stimulation of by , changes the existing "schema". requires you to have the ability to change, because your reception of new knowledge often requires a completely different way of thinking.
When you are in a new and unfamiliar "learning space", whether you can stimulate the ability to receive new knowledge and transfer new knowledge may be the effective meaning of "learning ability".
- Just as a friend is trying to use a variety of sports to practice her daughter's learning and reception abilities, and requires her to transfer her learning, that is, when she enters other types of new learning environments, such as in-class learning, she can also learn and receive efficiently.
Piaget continued to use the "balance" mechanism to explain children's cognitive processes. "Assimilation" and "accommodation" reach an equilibrium state, which is "balance", which is difficult.
According to Piaget, the lack of "assimilation" is manifested in your insufficient "accumulation in the same direction". This type of problem is easier for us to discover. For example, during a child's learning process, after several tests, exercises, and even some oral questions and answers, we can often find that the child's "assimilation" is insufficient, and then we need to strengthen their learning accumulation;
The imbalance of "accommodation" seems not so easy to be discovered and realized. We often need to be in a strange and brand-new learning space to discover the shortcomings of "adaptation" - because the new environment requires us to make us feel embarrassed and unable to start. Some people will start to reflect and find that their existing knowledge or ways of thinking have lost their use, so they realize that they need to change themselves. And more people may not reflect, so they don't realize that they need to change in order to "adapt."
This may be the reason why Bacon emphasizes "traveling far away". Get the stimulation of the new environment for yourself and find opportunities for reflection, so that "young people" can obtain effective "education" and "old people" can enrich their "experience".
Cognition needs to be constantly subverted before progress can be made.
is just like the "learning" process of a friend's daughter who is constantly switching: from speech recitation, to swimming, to figure skating and skiing, etc. I believe that what she has slowly learned is to strive to find "balance" amidst "subversions" one after another.
Cognitive development is such a cyclical process from "imbalance" to "balance". Does the child's "learning ability" improve after each cycle? At least that's what Piaget and I think.
involution VS. The neglected truth
Rudenstein, the former president of Harvard , said this: "There has never been an era where needs to be continuously, anytime, anywhere, quickly and efficiently like today. ml6Study. Gone are the days when you could rely on the knowledge you learned in school to cope with everything."
When you see this sentence, it is hard not to think of the sentence you often heard in the past - "Learn mathematics, physics and chemistry, and you will not be afraid of traveling around the world."
The pace of the times moves quietly, and great changes occur unconsciously. Today there are two contradictory situations that we all seem to be familiar with -
On one side, children are doing involutional learning to improve book knowledge;
On the other side, many scholars are loudly discussing and calling for an ignored truth: discussing "children's thinking" "Conservation" Piaget emphasized that pure book teaching will only hinder the maturity of children's thinking; future scholars in the field of education cruelly pointed out that in the future, the teaching of knowledge and skills will be secondary, because artificial intelligence will undoubtedly take over all this.
At this point, we parents seem to be helpless, because the word "volume" itself represents a state of blindness and being coerced.
However, a scene suddenly appeared in front of us. It was a parent who was the top student in primary school and shared on the Internet the self-report of his child after he was selected into a "study king" level camp in Beijing: A group of outstanding students spent half a day learning some completely unfamiliar and difficult knowledge, and then took the test in the next half day. This learning process covered the entire study camp period.
Speaking of such an assessment, of course it is aimed at children's learning ability . Let's break it down -
First of all, It certainly tests the speed at which children master new knowledge: Those children who can quickly integrate new knowledge into their original "knowledge base" and quickly activate their own "intellectual background" to absorb new knowledge undoubtedly demonstrate a type of valued learning ability;
Secondly, the learning content is completely unfamiliar, which tests the children 's ability to reintegrate their thinking and adapt to new stimuli in "subversion";
Thirdly, the learning content is still difficult, and the children have no Only by mobilizing the abilities of independent thinking, effective questioning, analysis, reflection and review can we effectively overcome the "difficulty";
Finally, such intense learning and testing will of course also test the children's spirit, psychology, personality, emotions, persistence, etc.
Yes, this kind of selection, which is regarded as the "best tester" in in-class learning, really requires a broader and more comprehensive "learning ability", which cannot be obtained by simply studying hard.
Why wait until "like waking up from a dream, a ground-breaking shock"?
When I was rethinking "learning ability", I saw a professional person's summary of his learning career. He used the words "like waking up from a dream, earth-shattering" to describe himself:
From when he was a student, he “didn’t know how to learn and was unwilling to ask questions”;
to when he first entered the workplace, he “knows how to learn and knows how useful the knowledge is, but he doesn’t "Know how to use it";
Then after "long years of depression", "I woke up like a dream and had a shocking start", and finally realized that "knowledge is solidified and reality changes."
Knowledge is abstract, reality is concrete. "Knowledge is a definite principle, reality is an uncertain point in time" and other principles, it was found that knowledge needs to be transferred to various application scenarios, and cannot be copied mechanically, but needs to create its own, realistic "application system".
suddenly felt that wouldn't it be better to let children realize all this earlier - learning ability is not just about knowledge and skills, and it is not just about books. It is an ability that covers a wider area, requires all kinds of fresh stimulation, can be obtained in the process of "balanced" and "imbalanced" evolution, can withstand switching, and can be transferred.
Don’t wait until you enter the workplace, and after being “depressed for many years”, you will have a “real-time awakening”...
Interactive message: Do you have any experiences or insights on cultivating children’s interests? Welcome to leave a message and exchange ~
This article is an original content when I was a child. The author is Zeng Jianchuan. When he was a teenager, he was the executive planner of "The World Is So Big", a science popularizer, and a well-known scientific and humanistic documentary director.
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